smaller type. In both the latter cases, it would likewise seem, that there were plays by older or rival dramatists upon the same incidents. The most noticeable proof of the advantage which a bookseller conceived he should derive from the announcement that the work he published was by our poet, is af forded by the title-page of the collection of his dispersed sonnets, which was ushered into the world as "Shakespeare's Sonnets," in very large capitals, as if that mere fact would be held a sufficient recommendation. In a former part of our memoir we have alluded to the circumstance, that in 1609 Shakespeare was pliment paid to him in "Macbeth" the Duke of Buckingham is said to have had Davenant's evidence for this anecdote, which was first told in print in the advertisement to Lintot's edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1710. Rowe says nothing of it in his "Life;" and it seems very improbable that James I should have so far condescended, and very probable that the writer of Lintot's advertisement should not have been very scrupulous. We may conjecture, that a privy seal under the sign manual, granting to the King's players some extraordinary reward on the occasion, has been misrepresented as a private letter from the King to the dramatist. The eldest daughter of William and Anne Shake-rated to the poor of the Liberty of the Clink in a speare, Susanna, having been born in May, 1583, was rather more than twenty-four years old when she was married, on 5th June, 1607, to Mr. John Hall, of Stratford, who is styled "gentleman" in the register, but he was a professor of medicine, and subsequently practised as a physician. There appears to have been no reason on any side for opposing the match, and we may conjecture that the ceremony was performed in the presence of our great dramatist, during one of his summer excursions to his native town. About six months afterwards he lost his brother Edmund, and his mother in the autumn of the succeeding year. sum which might possibly indicate that he was the occupant of a commodious dwelling-house in Southwark. The fact that our great dramatist paid sixpence a week to the poor there, (as high a sum as anybody in that immediate vicinity was assessed at,) is stated in the account of the Life of Edward Alleyn, printed by the Shakespeare Society, and there it is too hastily inferred that he was rated at this sum upon a dwelling-house occupied by himself. This is very possibly the fact; but, on the other hand, the truth may be, that he paid the rate not for any habitation, good or bad, large or small, but in respect of his theatrical property in the Globe, which was situated in the same district. The parish register of St. Saviour's establishes, that in 1601 the There is no doubt that Edmund Shakespeare, who was not twenty-eight at the time of his death, had embraced the profession of an actor, for in the regis-church-wardens had been instructed by the vestry “to tration of his death at St. Saviour's, Southwark, he is specified, rather unusually, as "a player." We, however, never meet with his name in any list of the associations of the time, nor is he mentioned as an actor among the characters of any old play with which we are acquainted. We may presume, therefore, that he attained no eminence; perhaps his principal employment might be under his brother in the management of his theatrical concerns, while he only took inferior parts when the assistance of a larger number of performers than usual was neces Bary. Mary Shakespeare survived her son Edmund about eight months, and was buried at Stratford on the 9th Sept. 1608. There are few points of his life which can be stated with more confidence than that our great dramatist attended the funeral of his mother: filial piety and duty would of course impel him to visit Stratford on the occasion, and in proof that he did so, we may mention that on the 16th of the next month he stood godfather there to a boy of the name of William Walker. Shakespeare's mother had probably resided at New Place, the house of her son; from whence, we may presume also, the body of her husband had been carried to the grave seven years before. If she were of full age when she was married to John Shakespeare in 1557, she was about 72 years old at the time of her decease. talk with the players" respecting the payment of tithes and contributions to the maintenance of the poor; and it is not very unlikely that some arrange ment was made under which the sharers in the Globe, and Shakespeare as one of them, would be assessed. It is not unlikely that he was the occupier of a substantial dwelling-house in the immediate neighborhood of the Globe, where his presence and assistance would often be required; and the amount of his income at this period would warrant such an expenditure, although we have no reason for thinking that such a house would be needed for his wife and family, because the existing evidence is opposed to the notion that they ever resided with him in London. CHAPTER XVII. Attempt of the Lord Mayor and aldermen in 1608 to expel the King's players from the Blackfriars, and its failure. -Negotiation by the corporation to purchase the theatre and its appurtenances: interest and property of Shakespeare and other sharers.-The income of Richard Bur. bage at his death.-Diary of the Rev. J. Ward, Vicar of Stratford, and his statement regarding Shakespeare's expenditure.-Copy of a letter froin Lord Southampton on behalf of Shakespeare and Burbage.-Probable decision of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere in favor of the company at the Blackfriars theatre. to form some judgment of the sum he annually derived from the private theatre in the Blackfriars. The reputation of our poet as a dramatist seems at this period to have been at its height. His We have referred to the probable amount of the "King Lear" was printed three times for the same income of our great dramatist in 1609, and a docubookseller in 1608; and in order perhaps to increasement has been lately discovered, which enables us its sale, (as well as to secure the purchaser against the old King Leir," a play upon the same story, being given to him instead,) the name of "M. William Shake-speare" was placed very conspicuously, and most unusually, at the top of the title-page. The same observation will in part apply to "Pericles," which came out in 1609, with the name of the author greatly displayed, although in the ordinary place. "Troilus and Cressida," which was published in the same year, also has the name of the author very distinctly legible, but in a somewhat From the outset of the undertaking, the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London had been hostile to the establishment of players within this precinct, and, as we have already shown, they had made several fruitless efforts to dislodge them. The attempt was renewed in 1608, when Sir Henry Montagu, the Attorney General of the day, gave an opinion in favor of the claim of the citizens to exercise their municipal powers within the precinct of the late dissolved monastery of the Blackfriars. The question seems in some shape to have been brought be fore Baron Ellesmere, then Lord Chancellor of England, who required from the Lord Mayor and his brethren proofs that they had exercised any authority in the disputed liberty. As far as we can judge, no such proofs, applicable to any recent period, were forthcoming. Lord Ellesmere, therefore, we may conclude, was opposed to the claim of the city. Failing in this endeavor to expel the King's players by force of law, the corporation appears to have taken a milder course, and negotiated with the players for the purchase of the Blackfriars the atre, with all its properties and appurtenances. To this negotiation we are probably indebted for a paper, which shows with great exactness and particularity the amount of interest then claimed by each sharer, those sharers being Richard Burbage, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, John Heminge, Henry Condell, Joseph Taylor, and John Lowin, with four other persons not named, each the owner of half a share. From this document we learn that Richard Burbage was the owner of the freehold or fee, (which he no doubt inherited from his father,) as well as the owner of four shares, the value of all which, taken together, he rated at £1,933, 6s. 8d. Laurence Fletcher (if it be he, for the Christian name is written "Laz,") was proprietor of three shares, for which he claimed £700. Shakespeare was proprietor of the wardrobe and properties of the theatre, estimated at £500, as well as of four shares, valued, like those of Burbage and Fletcher, at £233, 6s. 8d. each, or £933, 6s. 8d., at seven years' purchase his whole demand was £1,433, 6s. 8d., or £500 less than that of Burbage, inasmuch as the fee was considered worth £1,000, while Shakespeare's wardrobe and properties were valued at £500. Heminge and Condell each required £466, 13s. 4d. for their two shares, and Taylor £350 for his share and a half, while the four unnamed half-sharers put in their claim to be compensated at the same rate, £466, 13s. 4d. This mode of estimating the Blackfriars theatre made the value of it £6,166, 13s. 4d., and to this sum was to be added remuneration to the hired men of the company, who were not sharers, as well as to the widows and orphans of deceased actors: the purchase-money of the whole property was thus raised to at least £7000. Each share, out of the twenty into which the receipts of the theatre were divided, yielded, as was alleged, an annual profit of £33, 6s. 8d.; and Shakespeare owning four of these shares, his annual income, from them only, was £133, 6s. 8d.: he was besides proprietor of the wardrobe and properties, stated to be worth £500: these, we may conclude, he lent to the company for a certain consideration, and, reckoning wear and tear, ten per cent, which seems a very low rate of payment, would add £50 a year to the £133, 6s. 8d. already mentioned, making together £183, 6s. 8d., besides what our great dramatist must have gained by the profits of his pen, upon which we have no data for forming an estimate. Without including anything on this account, and supposing only that the Globe was as profitable for a summer theatre as the Blackfriars was for a winter theatre, it is evident that Shakespeare's income could hardly have been less than £366, 13s. 4d. Taking every known source of emolument into view, we consider £400 a year the very lowest amount at which his income can be reokoned in 1608. The document upon which this calculation is founded is preserved among the papers of Lord Ellesmere, but a remarkable incidental confirmation of it has still more recently been brought to light in the State-paper office. Sir Dudley Carlton was ambassador at the Hague in 1619, and John Chamberlaine, writing to him on the 19th March in that year, and mentioning the death of Queen Anne, states that "the funeral is put off to the 29th of the next month, to the great hinderance of our players, which are forbidden to play so long as her body is above ground: one speciall man among them, Burbage, is lately dead, and hath left, they say, better than £300 land.” Burbage made his nuncupative will four days before his burial: in it he said nothing about the amount of his property, but merely left his wife Winifred his sole executrix. There can be no doubt, however, that the correspondent of Sir Dudlay Carlton was correct in his information, and that Burbage died worth "better than" £300 a year in land, besides his "goods and chattels :" £300 a year at that date was about £1,500 of our present money, and we have every reason to suppose that Shakespeare was quite in as good, if not in better circumstances. Nevertheless, it must not be for gotten, that although Shakespeare continued a large sharer with the leading members of the company in 1608, he had retired from the stage about four years before; and having ceased to act, but still retaining his shares in the profits of the theatres with which he was connected, it is impossible to say what arrangement he may have made with the rest of the company for the regular contribution of dramas, in lieu perhaps of his own personal exertions. In a work published a few years ago, containing extracts from the Diary of the Rev. John Ward, who was vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, and whose memoranda extend from 1648 to 1679, it is stated that Shakespeare "in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year, and for it had an allowance so large, that he spent at the rate of £1,000 a year, as I have heard." We take it for granted that the sum of £1,000 (equal to nearly £5,000 now) is a considerable exaggeration, but it may warrant the belief that Shakespeare lived in good style and port, late in life, in his native town. It is very possible, too, though we think not probable, that after he retired to Stratford he continued to write, but it is utterly incredible that subsequent to his retirement he 66 supplied the stage with two plays every year." He might not be able at once to relinquish his old and confirmed habits of composition; but such other evidence as we possess is opposed to Ward's statement, to which he himself appends the cautionary words, "as I have heard." Of course he could have known nothing but by hearsay forty-six years after our poet's decease. We have already adverted to the bounty of the Earl of Southampton to Shakespeare. Another document has been handed down to us among the papers of Lord Ellesmere, which proves the strong interest Lord Southampton still took, about fifteen years afterwards, in Shakespeare's affairs, and in the prosperity of the company to which he was attached. It is the copy of a letter subscribed H. 8. (the initials of the Earl) to some nobleman in favor of the great dramatist, and of the chief performer in many of his plays, Richard Burbage. We may conclude that the original was not addressed to Lord Ellesmere, or it would have been found in the depository of his papers, and not merely a transcript of it; but a copy of it may have been furnislied to the Lord Chancellor, in order to give him some information respecting the characters of the parties upon whose cause he was called upon to decide. Lord Ellesmere stood high in the confidence of his sovereign: he had many important public duties to discharge besides those belonging to his great office; and notwithstanding he had shown himself at all times a liberal patron of letters, and had had many works of value dedicated to him, we may readily imagine, that although he must have heard of Shakespeare and Burbage, he was in some degree of ignorance as to their individual deserts, which this communication was intended to remove. We have introduced an exact copy of the document in a note, and it will be observed that it is without date; but the subject of it shows beyond dispute that it belongs to this period. There can be no doubt that the object the players had in view was attained, because we know that the King's servants continued to occupy the theatre long after the death of Shakespeare. CHAPTER XVIII. Warrant to Daborne, Shakespeare, Field, and Kirkham, for the Children of the Queen's Revels, in January, 1610Popularity of juvenile companies of actors.-Stay of Daborne's warrant, and the reasons for it-Shakespeare's dramas between 1609 and 1612-His retirement to Stratford, and disposal of his property in the Blackfriars and The copy is without address, and runs as follows:"My verie honored Lord. The manic good offices I haue received at your Lordship's hands, which ought to make me backward in asking further favors, onely imbouldeneth me to require more in the same kinde. Your Lordship will be warned howe hereafter you graunt anle sute, seeing it draweth on more and greater demaunds. This which now presseth is to request your Lordship, in all you can, to be good to the poore players of the Black Fryers, who call them selves by authoritie the servaunts of his Majestie, and aske for the protection of their most gracious Maister and Sovereigne in this the tyme of their troble. They are threatened by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, never friendly to their calling, with the distruction of their meanes of livelihood, by the pulling downe of their plaiehouse, which is a priuate theatre, and hath neuer giuen occasion of anger by anie disorders. These bearers are two of the chiefe of the companie; one of them by name Richard Burbidge, who humblie sueth for your Lordship's kinde helpe, for that he is a man famous as our English Roscius, one who fitteth the action to the word, and the word to the action most admirably. By the exercise of his qualitye, industry, and good behaviour, he hath be come possessed of the Blacke Fryers playhouse, which hath bene imployed for playes sithence it was builded by his Father, now nere 50 yeres agone. The other is a man no whitt lesse deserving favor, and my especiall friende, till of late an actor of good ac count in the companie, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English playes, which, as your Lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Quene Elizabeth, when the companie was called uppon to per: forme before her Maiestie at Court at Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious Maiestie King James alsoe, sence his coming to the crowne, hath extended his royal favor to the companie in divers waies and at sundrie tymes. This other hath to name William Shakespeare, and they are both of one countie, and indeede allmost of one towne : both are right famous in their qualityes, though it longeth not of your Lo. grauitie and wisdome to resort vnto the places where they are wont to delight the publique eare. Their trust and sute nowe is not to bee molested in their way of life, whereby they maintaine them selves and their wives and families, (being both married and of good reputation,) as well as the widows and orphanes of some of their dead fellows. "Your Lo most bounden at com. Copia vera." "H. S." Lord Southampton was clearly mistaken when he stated that the Blackfriars theatre had been built nearly fifty years: in 1608 it had been built about thirty-three years, Globe theatres.-Shakespeare's purchase of a house in Blackfriars from Henry Walker in 1613, and the possible cause of it explained.-Shakespeare described as of Stratford-upon-Avon. IT is a fact, of which it may be said we have conclusive proof, that almost from the first, if not from the first, the Blackfriars theatre had been in the joint possession of the Lord Chamberlain's servants and of a juvenile company called the Children of the Chapel: they were also known as "her Majes ty's Children," and "the Children of the Blackfriars;" and it is not to be supposed that they employed the theatre on alternate days with their older competitors, but that, when the Lord Chamberlain's servants acted elsewhere in the summer, the Children of the Chapel commenced their performances at the Blackfriars. The success of the juvenile companies in the commencement of the reign of James I., and even at the latter end of that of Elizabeth, was great; and we find Shakespeare alluding to it in very pointed terms in a well-known passage in "Hamlet," which we suppose to have been written in the winter of 1601, or in the spring of 1602. They seem to have gone on increasing in popularity, and very soon after James I. ascended the throne, Queen Anne took a company, called "the Children of the Queen's Revels," under her immediate patronage. There is no reason to doubt that they continued to perform at Blackfriars, and in the very commencement of the year 1610 we find that Shakespeare either was, or intended to be, connected with them. At this period he probably contemplated an early retirement from the metropolis, and might wish to avail himself, for a short period, of this new opportunity of profitable employment. Robert Daborne, the author of two dramas that have been printed, and of several others that have been lost, seems to have been a man of good family, and of some interest at court; and in January 1609-10, he was able to procure a royal grant, authorizing him and others to provide and educate a number of young actors, to be called "the Children of the Queen's Revels." Daborne was placed at the head of this association; and not, perhaps, having sufficient means or funds of his own, he had, as was not unusual, partners in the undertaking: those partners were William Shakespeare, Nathaniel Field, (the celebrated actor, and very clever author,) and Edward Kirkham, who had previously enjoyed a privilege of the same kind. In the "Entry Book of Patents and Warrants for Patents" we find a draft of the warrant under which Daborne and his partners, therein named, viz: Shakespeare, Field, and Kirkham, were to proceed; and it is a circumstance deserving notice, that "the Children of the Queen's Revels" were thereby licensed not only to act "tragedies, comedies," &c. in the Blackfriars theatre, but "elsewhere within the realm of England;" so that even places where the city authorities had indisputably a right to exercise jurisdiction were not exempted. We may be satisfied, however, that the warrant of 1609-10 to Daborne and his partners was not carried into effect: although it may have been decided at this date that the lord mayor and aldermen had no power forcibly to exclude the actors from the Blackfriars, it may have been held inexpedient to go the length of authorizing a young company to act within the very boundaries of the city. So far the corporation may have prevailed, and this may be the cause why we never hear of any steps having been taken under the warrant of 1609-10. The word their capital, so advantageously employed, by purchasing Shakespeare's interest. The circumstance of the nature of our great dramatist's property in the two theatres seems to authorize the conclu sion, that he sold it before he retired to the place of his birth, where he meant to spend the rest of his days with his family, in the tranquil enjoyment of the independence he had secured by the exertions of "stayed" is added at the conclusion of the draft, as | and he and others would have been glad to add to if some good ground had been discovered for delaying, if not for entirely withholding it. Certain it is, that the new scheme seems to have been entirely abandoned; and whatever Shakespeare may have intended when he became connected with it, he continued, as long as he remained in London, and as far as any evidence enables us to judge, to write only for the company of the King's players, who persevered in their performances at the Black-five and twenty years. friars in the winter, and at the Globe in the summer. "Troilus and Cressida" and "Pericles" were printed in 1609, and to our mind there seems but little doubt that they had been written and prepared for the stage only a short time before they came from the press. With the single exception of "Othello," which came out in 4to in 1622, no other new drama by Shakespeare appeared in a printed form between 1609 and the date of the publication of the folio in 1623. We need not here discuss what plays, first found in that volume, were penned by our great dramatist after 1609, because we have separately considered the claims of each in our preliminary Introductions. "Timon of Athens," | "Coriolanus," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Cymbeline," "The Winter's Tale," and "The Tempest," seem to belong to a late period of our poet's theatrical career, and some of them were doubtless written between 1609 and the period, whatever that period might be, when he entirely relinquished dramatic composition. It is possible, as we have said, that Shakespeare continued to employ his pen for the stage after his retirement to Stratford, and the buyers of his shares might even make it a condition that he should do so for a time; but we much doubt whether, with his long experience of the necessity of personal superintendence, he would have continued a shareholder in any concern of the kind over which he had no control. During the whole of his life in connection with the stage, even after he quitted it as an actor, he seems to have been obliged to reside in London, apart from his family, for the purpose of watching over his interest in the two theatres to which he belonged: had he been merely an author, after he ceased to be an actor, he might have composed his dramas as well at Stratford as in London, visiting the metropolis only while a new play was in rehearsal and preparation; but such was clearly not the case, and we may be confident that when he retired to a place so distant from the scene of his triumphs, he did not allow his mind to be encumbered by the continuance of professional anxieties. Between January 1609-10, when Shakespeare was one of the parties to whom the warrant for the Children of the Queen's Revels was conceded, and the year 1612, when it has been reasonably supposed that he quitted London to take up his permanent residence at Stratford, we are in possession of no material facts connected with his personal history. It would seem both natural and prudent that, before he withdrew from the metropolis, he should dispose of his theatrical property, which must necessarily be of fluctuating and uncertain value, depending much upon the presence and activity of the owner for its profitable management. In his will he says nothing of any such property, and we are left to infer that he disposed of it before he finally retired to Strat-uated" within the precinct, circuit, and compass of ford. It is to be recollected also that the species of interest he had in the Blackfriars theatre, independently of his shares in the receipts, was peculiarly perishable: it consisted of the wardrobe and properties, which in 1608, were valued at £500: and we may feel assured that he would sell them to the company which had had the constant use of them, and doubtless had paid an annual consideration to the owner. Whatever, in fact, became of Shakespeare's interest in the Blackfriars theatre, both as a sharer and as the owner of the wardrobe and properties, we need not hesitate in concluding that, in the then prosperous state of theatrical affairs in the metropolis, he was easily able to procure a purchaser. It may seem difficult to reconcile with this consideration the undoubted fact, that in the spring of 1613 Shakespeare purchased a house, and a small piece of ground attached to it, not far from the Blackfriars theatre, in which we believe him to have disposed of his concern in the preceding year. The documents relating to this transaction have come down to us, and the indenture assigning the property from Henry Walker, "citizen of London and minstrel of London," to William Shakespeare, "of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman," bears date 10th March, 1612-'13: the consideration money was £140; the house was sitthe late Blackfriars," and we are farther informed that it stood "right against his Majesty's Wardrobe." It appears to have been merely a dwellinghouse with a small yard, and not in any way connected with the theatre, which was at some distance from the royal wardrobe, although John Heminge, the actor, was, with Shakespeare, a party to the deed, as well as William Johnson, vintner, and John Jackson, gentleman. Shakespeare may have made this purchase as an accommodation in some way to his "friend and fellow" Heminge, and the two other persons named; and it is to be remarked that, on the day after the date of the conveyance, Shakespeare mortgaged the house to Henry Walker, the vendor, for £60, having paid down only £80, on the 10th March. It is very possible that our poet advanced the £80 to Heminge, Johnson, and Jackson, ex He must also have had a considerable stake in the Globe, but whether he was also the owner of the same species of property there, as at the Blackfriars,pecting that they would repay him, and furnish the we can only speculate. There is no hint in any existing document what became of our great dramatist's interest in the Globe; but here again we need not doubt, from the profit that had always attended the undertaking, that he could have had no difficulty in finding parties to take it off his hands. Burbage we know was rich, for he died in 1619 worth £300 a year in land, besides his personal property, remaining £60 before the 29th September, 1613, the time stipulated in the mortgage deed; but as they did not do so, but left it to him, the house of course continued the property of Shakespeare, and after his death, in accordance with the provisions of his will, it became the possession of his daughter Susanna. Shakespeare must have been in London when Shakespeare himself only completed his forty-eighth year in April, 1612, and every tradition and circumstance of his life tends to establish not only the gentleness and kindness, but the habitual cheerfulness of his disposition. he put his signature to the conveyance; but we are Mr. and Mrs. Hall were joint occupiers of it, and to recollect, that the circumstance of his being de-aided in keeping up the vivacity of the family circle. scribed in it as "of Stratford-upon-Avon" is by no means decisive of the fact, that his usual place of abode in the spring of 1613 was his native town: he had a similar description in the deeds by which he purchased 107 acres of land from John and Wilham Combe in 1602, and a lease of a moiety of the tithes from Raphe Huband in 1605, although it is indisputable that at those periods he was generally resident in London. We are thoroughly convinced, however, that, anterior to March, 1613, Shakespeare had taken up his permanent residence with his family at Stratford. Nevertheless, although we suppose him to have separated himself from the labors and anxieties attendant upon his theatrical concerns, he was not without his annoyances, though of a different kind. We refer to a chancery suit in which he seems to have been involved by the purchase, in 1605, of the remaining term of a lease of part of the tithes of Stratford. It appears that a rent of £27, 13s. 4d. had been reserved, which was to be paid by certain lessecs under peril of forfeiture, but that some of the parties, disregarding the consequences, had refused to contribute their proportions; and Richard Lane, of Awston, Esquire, Thomas Greene, of Stratford-upon-Avon, Esquire, and William Shakespeare, "of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman," were under the necessity of filing a bill before Lord Elles-Destructive fire at Stratford in 1614.-Shakespeare's mere, to compel all the persons deriving estates unvisit to London afterwards.-Proposed inclosure of Welder the dissolved college of Stratford to pay their combe fields.-Allusion to Shakespeare in the historical poem of "The Ghost of Richard the Third," published in CHAPTER XIX. Members of the Shakespeare family at Stratford in 1612. Joan Shakespeare and William Hart: their marriage and family-William Shakespeare's chancery suit respecting the tithes of Stratford; and the income he derived from the lease.-The Globe burnt in 1613: its reconstruction. 1614. shares. What was the issue of the suit is not any where stated; and the only important point in the draft of the bill, in the hands of the Shakespeare Society, is, that our great dramatist therein stated the value of his "moiety" of the tithes to be £60 per annum. In the summer of 1613 a calamity happened which we do not believe affected our author's immediate THE immediate members of the Shakespeare family resident at this date (1612) in Stratford were comparatively few. Richard Shakespeare had died at the age of forty, only about a month before William Shakespeare signed the deed for the purchase of the house in Blackfriars. Since the death of Edmund, Richard had been our poet's youngest broth-interests, on account of the strong probability that er, but regarding his way of life at Stratford we have no information. Gilbert Shakespeare, born two years and a half after William, was also probably at this time an inhabitant of the borough, or its immediate neighborhood, and perhaps married, for in the register, under date of 3d February, 1611-'12, we read an account of the burial of "Gilbertus Shakspeare, adolescens," who might be his son. Joan Shakespeare, who was five years younger than her brother William, had been married at about the age of thirty to William Hart, a hatter, in Stratford. Their first child, William, was baptized on the 28th August, 1600, and they had afterwards children of the names of Mary, Thomas, and Michael, born respectively in 1603, 1605, and 1608. Our poet's eldest daughter, Susanna, who, as we have elsewhere stated, was married to Mr. John, afterwards Dr. Hall, in June, 1607, gave birth to a daughter who was baptized Elizabeth on the 21st February, 1607-'8; so that Shakespeare was a grandfather before he had reached his forty-fifth year; but Mrs. Hall had no farther increase of family. By whom New Place, otherwise called "the great house," was inhabited at this period, we can only conjecture. That Shakespeare's wife and his youngest daughter Judith (who completed her twenty-eighth year in February, 1612) resided in it, we cannot doubt; but as it would be much more than they would require, even after they were permanently joined by our great dramatist on his retirement from London, we may perhaps conclude that It has been generally stated that Charles Hart, the celebrated actor after the Restoration, was the grand-nephew of Shakespeare, son to the eldest son of Shakespeare's sister Joan, but we are without positive evidence upon the point. In 1622 a person of the name of Hart kept a house of entertainment close to the Fortune theatre, and he may have been the son of Shakespeare's sister Joan, and the father of Charles Hart the actor, who died about 1679. he had taken care to divest himself of all theatrical ested. He must himself have had an escape from a similar disaster at Stratford in the very next year. Fires had broken out in the borough in 1594 and 1595, which had destroyed many of the houses; but that which occurred on the 9th July, 1614, seems to have done more damage than both its predecessors. At the instance of various gentlemen in the neighborhood, including Sir Fulk Greville, Sir Richard Verney, and Sir Thomas Lucy, King James issued a proclamation, or brief, dated 11th May, 1615, in favor of the inhabitants of Stratford, authorizing the collection of donations in the different churches of the kingdom for the restoration of the town; and |